Australia Day: Penrith residents named in honours list

A loved GP, an esteemed educator and a history preservation expert are the three Penrith locals that have been awarded OAMs for 2022.

The outstanding achievements of Penrith residents have been recognised in the 2022 Australia Day Honours.

While many of us will be relishing some free time, three locals will be receiving the nation’s highest honour for their contributions in fields of medicine, teaching and history preservation.

Among the recipients on this year’s list is well-known Penrith general practitioner, Dr Harald Alexander Pope, or Dr Harry Pope as most locals know him.

Penrith's Dr Harry Pope has been honoured with an OAM.

Dr Pope has been at the forefront of upskilling GPs, improving quality in general practice and featured in a senate inquiry representing veterans and their health needs, particularly in regards to the effects of agent orange, a herbicide used in the Vietnam War.

The experienced doctor has also supervised many GPs, the management of large western Sydney medical centres and taught as a medical educator at Western Sydney University.

He’s been working so long that he has even lived to consult five generations within one family.

“I’ve found my career very satisfying and I’ve treated a family where I’m into their fifth generation now. That family was my first house call. Their matriarch passed away at 104,” he said.

“I was able to look after my kindergarten teacher and my high school headmaster as their GP.”

Despite Dr Pope’s extensive work history, he was surprised to find out he’d received the honour.

“I was surprised because I wasn’t totally aware that I’d been nominated. I’m very honoured to be receiving the award. In a way, it’s an acknowledgment of the extra effort that we, as GPs, put in that extends beyond our face-to-face consultations with patients,” Dr Pope said.

“As GPs, we also get involved with different support groups and become advocates for our patients by identifying gaps in the healthcare system and seeing what we can do to help.”

Coming from a family with a German and Ukrainian refugee background post-WWII, it seems Dr Pope was destined for greatness no matter what route he chose.

“I was actually a tennis player in the 70s and had a scholarship to go to the US. I also had an opportunity to pursue architecture. Then exams came out, I performed well and I got into medicine,” he said.

And he hasn’t looked back since.

He has been a war veteran’s medico-legal advocate, a medical director for the Vietnam Veterans Federation of Australia, a lecturer at Western Sydney University, chairman of the Macarthur Division of General Practice, a Civilian Doctor for the Royal Australian Air Force and he has supervised numerous large medical centres across Sydney’s west.

From pushing frameworks of general practice to making GPs more collegiate to helping doctors with medico-legal issues when there was injustice, Dr Pope has served the community tremendously.

Penrith is also lucky to be home to a pioneer in the education sphere, Barry Edward Roots.

Barry Roots has been an educator at two of Penrith’s most prestigious schools. He introduced IB to Penrith Anglican College.

Mr Roots was a foundation Headmaster at Penrith Anglican College, a foundation Deputy Headmaster at St Paul’s Grammar School and has been chairman of both the New Anglican Schools Association and the Australasian Association of International Baccalaureate Schools.

He also featured in Penrith City Council’s wall of achievement in 2009.

However, the esteemed educator was in sheer disbelief upon opening the email that notified him of the honour.

“In truth, I received an email and thought it was a scam as I’ve been retired since 2014 and it seemed a fair distance from when my professional career ended,” Mr Roots said.

He was assured that the message was definitely not a scam.

“I called Government House and they confirmed I was being awarded an OAM. I was absolutely excited, humbled and thought of the people who have been with me on the journey that made this OAM possible,” he said.

“It may seem cliche but I’m getting it on behalf of myself and a huge number of people who helped me build a school, Penrith Anglican. College.

“I was appointed in 1997 at headmaster. We started with 132 students and when I retired we had over 1000 children.”

Mr Roots said among his fondest career memories are the establishment of Penrith Anglican College and introducing the International Baccalaureate program to it, when the time came.

Teaching sits at the heart of Mr Roots’ passion and he loved every moment of it.

“For me, it was watching a four-and-a-half-year-old turn into a wonderful person by year 12 and watching them enter the world,” he said.

Our third and final OAM receiver is none other than Cambridge Park’s star history preservation expert, Major Kenneth John McKay.

81-year-old retired major, Kenneth McKay, will be celebrating his OAM with a glass of red. Picture: Simran Gill.

The retired Major, 81, is keen to celebrate his OAM.

“I take it as an honour that I’ve been recognised. I’m probably going to have a glass of red on Wednesday,” he said.

Major McKay has served as both Secretary and Treasurer of the Army Museum of NSW Foundation, Honorary Secretary and Treasurer of the University of NSW Regiment Association and a Platoon Commander in the Australian Army Reserve in the 80s.

Major McKay said he has served about 30 years in the army reserve at the UNSW regiment in Kensington before he decided to embark on his career’s most monumental moment.

“I decided, after retiring from the army reserve, that I’d update their regimental reserve and have it published. It was a big project that took a couple of years and was a highlight for me.”

History, and its preservation, is something that was passed down to the Major from his father.

“My father was a Second World War soldier and the secretary of his veteran association. He involved me in his work and I took over after he passed,” he said.

Thanks to Major McKay, a whole world of history has been preserved for many locals to look back on for generations to come.